By Thomas Abidoye
You know, these days I look around and I can’t help but feel a bit uneasy about how things are going with journalism. Back then, if you called yourself a journalist, it meant something, you probably went to school for years, studied media, communication, ethics, how to fact-check, how to write fairly, all of that. But now, grab a smartphone, open any app, hit record or type a quick post, and boom, you’re in the game. Everyone with a mobile phone can suddenly call themselves a journalist.
It’s wild. Even those social media pages that mostly post memes, funny videos, or gossip, people attribute the ‘journalist’ label on them just because they have thousands or millions of followers. ‘Oh, this blogger broke the news first’, they say, and suddenly the blogger is a journalist. Many folks genuinely believe that if you’re running a popular page or account pumping out content, you’re doing journalism. No training needed, no code of ethics required, just views and likes.
And it’s not just random people. I’ve seen guys who studied chemistry or engineering or whatever, do maybe a one-week fellowship or online course, and next thing you know, they’re introducing themselves as journalists. Some of them are actually doing great work, putting out stories fast, reaching people mainstream media might miss, even exposing things others overlook. I won’t lie, a lot of them are killing it, and that’s cool in its own way.
But here’s what keeps nagging at me: what happens to the people who actually spent four, five, sometimes more years in university grinding through journalism or mass communication courses. The ones who learned about libel laws, source protection, balance in reporting, verifying facts before rushing to post, building trust over time. They come out with degrees, internships, maybe even scars from tough assignments, and now the field feels like it’s wide open to literally anyone with a data plan.
It feels like a free-for-all. No gatekeepers, no standards everyone has to meet, just whoever gets the story out first wins. Speed beats depth, clicks beat accuracy sometimes. And yeah, the old way wasn’t perfect, traditional media has its own problems with bias, gatekeeping, slow pace, but at least there was some kind of structure, some accountability.
I worry that down the line, the real craft of journalism, the careful, thoughtful, responsible kind, might get drowned out. The people who dedicated their lives to learning it properly might start feeling like their effort doesn’t count as much anymore. When anyone can be a journalist, does the title even mean anything? And if it doesn’t, who do we trust when things get serious, elections, crises, big scandals?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying shut down citizen reporting or bloggers. Some of the best breaking news these days comes from regular people on the ground with their phones. It’s powerful. But I just wish there was a way to keep the best of both worlds, let everyone contribute, but still value and protect the foundation that trained journalists built over decades.
Right now, it just feels like the door is flung open so wide that the house might lose its shape. That’s my honest fear.
Thomas Abidoye is a digital journalist and current undergraduate student at Kwara State University. He previously served as Editor-in-Chief of the NYSC Kogi Corps Editorial Team, where he coordinated editorial activities for over 12,000 corps members across 21 local government areas. He can be reached via thomasabidoye@yahoo.com.
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